Does Your Preaching Pass The Rock and The Reed Challenge?

[00:00:00] I think some preaching can be like opening an old drawer, almost like an artifact. You're finding this, you're finding that. I really try to encourage our students not to take the audience for granted, not to take the congregation for granted. You don't have a captive audience.

[00:00:19] You speak and preach the way Jesus did where you really are endeavoring to gain a hearing from what is being said. So that kind of informational data communication, you ought to be interested because this is the Bible kind of communication. That to me fits with this not very effective communication.

[00:00:46] Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective Podcast, episode 354. I'm your host, Mike Neglia, and the voice that you heard is our guest for this week. I sat down with Dr. Douglas D. Webster. He's the professor of pastoral theology and preaching at Beeson Divinity School.

[00:01:11] And we speak about a few different things, but the main focus is the art of preaching the parables of Jesus. Why did Jesus teach in parables? How are we as contemporary Bible teachers meant to communicate his parables to our contemporary audiences?

[00:01:33] Dr. Webster shares his insights into like the Old Testament roots of the parables, their blend of implicit and explicit communication.

[00:01:47] It's a great conversation if you have ever planned or if you're going to be teaching through the gospel accounts.

[00:01:54] Also, we speak about the idea of sermons being not just mining for content, but being like a tour guide walking through an art gallery.

[00:02:09] Make sure that you listen for that contrast and even that modern parable from Doug himself.

[00:02:18] Well, I know this is going to encourage you and I hope it helps you in your preparation for preaching the parables or for preaching anything else.

[00:02:27] I'll catch you at the end of this conversation.

[00:02:35] All right. Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective Podcast.

[00:02:38] I'm excited to be speaking with Dr. Douglas D. Webster.

[00:02:42] We're going to talk about preaching the parables and probably a bunch of other stuff.

[00:02:46] But yeah, Dr. Webster, Doug, how are you doing?

[00:02:48] Good. Mike, good to be with you. Looking forward to the talk.

[00:02:52] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've been reading your stuff for a while.

[00:02:56] And so to talk to you is a real treat.

[00:02:59] And I'm excited for the hearers to get to know you better.

[00:03:02] But one of the first questions that we always ask, kind of a way to get to know you better.

[00:03:07] I like to ask every guest, what was your first time teaching the Bible or what was your first public sermon and how did it go?

[00:03:14] First public sermon.

[00:03:15] I was a teenager and our pastor went away on vacation and he asked me to cover for him.

[00:03:25] I wasn't expecting that.

[00:03:27] And I was really, you know, he was pastoring me in that process of seeing some potential, I guess.

[00:03:35] I don't remember anything else about that except that he asked me to preach and I preached a small Baptist church in Western New York.

[00:03:50] And I look back on that as a person who identified something of a gift or a skill or whatever in me as a teenager.

[00:03:59] And that that meant a lot.

[00:04:01] Now, a teenager, a teenager can range from 13 to 19.

[00:04:06] So so how how old were you, you know?

[00:04:08] I think I was 16 and I was learning how to drive.

[00:04:12] Wow.

[00:04:13] And he also, you know, connected me to a 90 year old missionary to China who was bedridden.

[00:04:20] And he thought it would be really good if I spent Sunday afternoons visiting her.

[00:04:26] And and I'll tell you, it was, you know, I mean, he was he was really helpful in pointing me in a direction.

[00:04:33] Wow.

[00:04:34] I've interviewed a lot of preachers and a lot of a lot of Baptists or a lot of people who grew up Baptist.

[00:04:42] They talk about those kind of teen Sundays or those youth Sundays, which is I don't know if those happen as much anymore or there in my from from my tradition.

[00:04:52] It's just not something that we do.

[00:04:54] And it seems like it's like fraught with danger and so many things could go wrong.

[00:04:58] But yet they really have been a positive moment in so many people's lives.

[00:05:03] To your knowledge, do youth Sundays still happen?

[00:05:06] Are 16 year olds still invited into the pulpit?

[00:05:08] Well, you know, I don't think it was in that church.

[00:05:11] It wasn't classified as a youth Sunday.

[00:05:13] It was a Sunday where the pastor was gone and he was asking somebody to fill in.

[00:05:20] So, yeah, I don't know.

[00:05:22] I do try to identify.

[00:05:24] I'm a Presbyterian in tradition now.

[00:05:27] And and I do try to identify people, I think, at a young age.

[00:05:33] I also remember some disasters as a as a young guy.

[00:05:38] I was interviewed on a radio thing like this when I was 12 and for my personal testimony.

[00:05:44] And in the process of giving it, my mind went totally blank, just absolutely blank.

[00:05:52] Like I didn't know where I was.

[00:05:56] And the person wasn't like you, Mike.

[00:05:59] They really panicked and couldn't.

[00:06:02] They also couldn't think of what to say.

[00:06:04] I threw everybody off.

[00:06:07] So just dead quiet on the New York.

[00:06:10] Yeah.

[00:06:11] Yeah.

[00:06:12] OK, well, hopefully we'll be able to manage and prevent that from happening.

[00:06:18] You mentioned, yeah, you were 16 years old.

[00:06:20] And I know that you've been trying to help coach people in preaching for at least 16 years.

[00:06:28] So I just want to try to force that connection.

[00:06:32] And I suppose, yeah, like what are the sort of things in these 16 years of like helping preachers?

[00:06:39] What are the sort of things that you kind of wish more younger and newer Bible teachers knew as they got started?

[00:06:47] Oh, what would I like them to know when they get started?

[00:06:50] One of the things that I think is just a grasp of the whole story of salvation.

[00:06:55] And we have students that come to Beeson Divinity School and they, it's kind of the first time they're seeing the whole picture of the Bible and how it all fits together and the coherence of it.

[00:07:09] I probably grew up a lot in those younger days with just the Pauline epistles over and over and over again.

[00:07:16] And it, you know, it wasn't until later that I kind of grasped the totality of the salvation story.

[00:07:24] So that's one of the things that I would encourage people.

[00:07:29] Yeah.

[00:07:30] And how can, yeah, how can that happen?

[00:07:34] I mean, apart from read the Bible over and over again, but.

[00:07:37] You've heard of the Bible Project, right?

[00:07:39] Sure.

[00:07:39] Yeah, sure.

[00:07:40] Yeah.

[00:07:40] And, you know, I think it's a wonderful initiative.

[00:07:43] It's free.

[00:07:44] It's helpful.

[00:07:46] I think it's summations of biblical books are really good.

[00:07:51] And it encourages people to sort of get the essence of a biblical book and follow its trajectory.

[00:07:57] I think my grandkids now, all five of them, have a better grasp of the salvation story than I grew up with.

[00:08:07] And I'm really thankful for that.

[00:08:08] Their parents are parenting them with that sense.

[00:08:12] Ideally, you get it in the home.

[00:08:14] Yeah.

[00:08:15] Yeah.

[00:08:15] And, you know, people can be quick to bemoan.

[00:08:17] Yeah.

[00:08:18] The coming generation or this or that.

[00:08:20] But thank you for that bit of positivity about the hope that you have in these grandkids.

[00:08:26] So I would love to speak to you for a little bit about your book published by our friends at Lexham Press, More Than a Sermon.

[00:08:34] So you are like, you're perfect for this podcast because we're like obsessed with like certain preparation and delivery and growing in all of those.

[00:08:43] And kind of your book seems to have these two themes.

[00:08:45] And kind of your book seems to have these two themes, the purpose of preaching and the practice of preaching.

[00:08:50] Yeah.

[00:08:51] What is like the message of More Than a Sermon?

[00:08:58] You know, that wasn't the original title.

[00:09:00] Oh.

[00:09:01] And Lexham gave me that title and I agreed with them.

[00:09:06] They made a good decision.

[00:09:08] But the original title was The Rock and Reed Challenge.

[00:09:13] Okay.

[00:09:14] You know, the prophetic word that is the hammer to the rock and the Jesus word.

[00:09:22] Jeremiah 23.

[00:09:23] Yeah.

[00:09:24] Is not my word like a hammer?

[00:09:27] Yeah.

[00:09:27] Right.

[00:09:28] And then Isaiah, a bruised, a reed he did not bruise.

[00:09:33] And you put those two together and there you have something of the continuum of preaching, the prophetic and also pastoral word.

[00:09:41] And I think every sermon sort of has those components.

[00:09:45] And John opening in the gospel with Nicodemus and the woman at the well, those are two perfect illustrations.

[00:09:54] Nicodemus was a rock that needed to be broken.

[00:09:57] And she was a very vulnerable person who did not need to be in any way broken.

[00:10:05] So, yeah, the rock and reed challenge.

[00:10:07] But more than a sermon, what was your question?

[00:10:12] I suppose like here, I'll be honest.

[00:10:15] I've actually handled your book so many times because, yeah, Lexham Press, sorry.

[00:10:19] Yeah, Lexham Press gave us like kind of a stack to give away.

[00:10:22] And at our most recent or two training weekends ago in Pleasanton, California, we kind of gave them away as prizes.

[00:10:28] And I failed to keep back a copy for myself.

[00:10:32] So, I've actually not read it.

[00:10:35] So, can you tell me?

[00:10:37] Mike, you're giving away what you haven't read?

[00:10:39] I don't know.

[00:10:40] Oh, that's parabolic, isn't it?

[00:10:43] We'll come to that later on.

[00:10:45] Yeah, so many of them have come through my hands.

[00:10:47] But if I had kept one and I have read it, what would you hope I would have taken away from this?

[00:10:55] Oh, that the text is everything.

[00:10:58] I mean, it gives you the tone.

[00:11:00] It gives you the content.

[00:11:01] I think one of the things that I would like to communicate is that we really need to take the word more seriously.

[00:11:13] We don't have to bring so much creativity to it.

[00:11:16] We don't have to bring so much passion to it.

[00:11:19] But when you get to the tension of the text between our fallen human condition and God's redemptive provision, you put those two.

[00:11:27] And I think every preaching text ought to have both of those elements.

[00:11:31] The human condition, however it's described, in its fallenness, in its neediness, in its suffering, in its sinfulness,

[00:11:40] and how God's redemption provides his mercy and his grace to meet that need.

[00:11:45] And that's where the passion of the passage is found.

[00:11:48] The tension in the text, these two collide.

[00:11:52] And in a way, that's where you're going to find your preaching point, preaching passion.

[00:11:58] Yeah, well, to come back to the idea of a rock, I'm told that you speak about an art gallery versus a rock quarry.

[00:12:06] And those are two other kind of images.

[00:12:08] Is that connected with the rock and read?

[00:12:10] Or is that just another metaphor that you use?

[00:12:12] That's a good analogy that fits.

[00:12:16] I feel like maybe too many pastors with their exegesis feel like they're just mining good points and trying to find nuggets of truth.

[00:12:27] And that's okay.

[00:12:28] I mean, I think we all do that.

[00:12:30] But the art gallery sort of opens up a broader understanding of the aesthetics and the depth of meaning that the scriptures have.

[00:12:41] And that that does invoke a kind of creativity on our part to bring out that beauty.

[00:12:48] To understand the beauty that's in the text in the first place, which is profoundly beautiful.

[00:12:54] And the whole communication, the variety of communicational strategies that the word gives us.

[00:13:00] And to draw those out, I think, is just really helpful.

[00:13:05] So the art gallery to me and the art gallery can be appreciated by a profound expert in art as well as somebody like myself who doesn't know a lot about art.

[00:13:18] I can be fascinated by the art gallery.

[00:13:21] And I think, again, the spectrum of preaching ought to reach the person who's just in off the street and doesn't know much as well as a theologian that's sitting in the pew.

[00:13:33] Yeah, yeah.

[00:13:34] And I've wandered through some art galleries before and appreciated them.

[00:13:38] And then there was like a tour guide and she was like explaining something.

[00:13:43] And I kind of, you know, stood at the back and listened in and was just so impressed at like at the beauty that I hadn't noticed.

[00:13:53] And then just so thankful to have somebody explain it to me.

[00:13:56] Well, not to me, but explain it to her paying customers that I got to benefit from.

[00:14:00] And I kind of came away thinking like, you know, I think preaching should be a little bit like that.

[00:14:06] No, that's a very good point.

[00:14:08] Yeah.

[00:14:08] Yeah.

[00:14:09] We're tour guides in one sense.

[00:14:12] Explorers, discoverers with our congregations.

[00:14:16] Yes.

[00:14:17] But we shouldn't be like somebody who's giving away something they haven't even read.

[00:14:22] Yeah.

[00:14:24] Yeah.

[00:14:25] I mean, this might be too specific of a question, but like, could you kind of give like a caricature or a quick example of like what rock quarry preaching looks like or sounds like and then contrast that with what art gallery preaching could look like?

[00:14:39] So lead with the negative.

[00:14:45] You know, I think that's more informational kind of preaching.

[00:14:49] It's looking like I think some preaching can be like opening up an old drawer and almost like an artifact.

[00:14:57] You know, you're finding this, you're finding that.

[00:15:01] I really try to encourage our students not to take the audience for granted, not to take the congregation for granted.

[00:15:08] You don't have a captive audience.

[00:15:12] You speak and preach the way Jesus did where you really are endeavoring to gain a hearing from what is being said.

[00:15:21] So that kind of informational data communication, you ought to be interested because this is the Bible kind of communication.

[00:15:32] That to me fits with this not very effective communication.

[00:15:40] I don't think one, yeah, I'm mixing my metaphors here where I preached last night on Mark 10 and John and James come to Jesus and asked to be seated at the right or left of his throne.

[00:16:03] And Jesus says, you know, you really, you don't know what you're asking.

[00:16:08] And then goes on to talk about the difference between the leadership of and the world and the kind of sacrificial leadership of the church.

[00:16:18] But his real model for discipleship is is Barnimaeus.

[00:16:23] And, you know, the same question is posed to John and James.

[00:16:27] What do you want me to do for you?

[00:16:28] And then he asked that same question to blind Barnimaeus.

[00:16:31] What do you want me to do for you?

[00:16:32] And a lot of our preaching would have only covered the John and James conversation.

[00:16:41] We would not have included blind Barnimaeus.

[00:16:44] But in the mind of Mark, when he puts these two stories together, he wants them seen together.

[00:16:52] And so, you know, we speak of pericopes, these passages of scripture.

[00:16:58] And what's your pericope?

[00:16:59] What's your teaching text?

[00:17:01] Your preaching text?

[00:17:02] And invariably, I feel like we cut out kind of the main thrust of where the message in the narrative is going.

[00:17:11] And we don't get there.

[00:17:13] And it would be easier on us as preachers if we put the John and James dialogue and the blind Barnimaeus dialogue together.

[00:17:23] That's how Mark would have presented it, I think.

[00:17:26] Same with Nicodemus and the woman at the well.

[00:17:28] I mean, I know that's a lot of text.

[00:17:30] You can't read all that text and keep people with you.

[00:17:34] But you can tell the story of both together very effectively.

[00:17:39] And then you've really, you've taken your 30 minutes or 20 minutes and you've used that really well with Bible and not a lot of anecdotal filler.

[00:17:51] Yeah, yeah.

[00:17:52] Yeah, that's great.

[00:17:54] And maybe on a similar note, I remember teaching Mark many, many years ago, teaching through Mark.

[00:18:01] And that strange story of the Syrophoenician woman asking Jesus to heal her daughter and the kind of dismissive almost way.

[00:18:10] And the language of like, oh, even the dogs get bread.

[00:18:13] And then teaching that and, you know, doing my best.

[00:18:16] And I think I explained it, you know, accurately and contextually.

[00:18:19] And then the next week, you know, Jesus goes to the Decapolis and then he gives bread to a bunch of Gentiles.

[00:18:26] And then retroactively being like, wait a minute, this story connects with the previous story.

[00:18:33] But yeah, my pericope was kind of, that's as far as we're going to go.

[00:18:37] And then I didn't see that.

[00:18:40] So how do we know?

[00:18:41] How do we see these things?

[00:18:43] How do we?

[00:18:43] And actually, I know that these days you're preaching through a lectionary, right?

[00:18:47] So that means that your pericopes are assigned to you in advance.

[00:18:51] So how do you pull those things in while not doing violence to your assigned passage?

[00:19:00] Well, we expanded the lectionary reading yesterday to include blind Bartomeeus.

[00:19:07] And that's allowed, I guess.

[00:19:07] They allow that, right?

[00:19:08] Well, yeah, we're Presbyterians, so we do, we're not quite as strict as the Episcopalians on this.

[00:19:21] So that gives us a certain amount of freedom.

[00:19:26] You know, I'm in Birmingham, Alabama.

[00:19:30] You know, I didn't come here until I was 56.

[00:19:33] And I pastored in San Diego for 14 years before that.

[00:19:38] And my family sort of grew up in Southern California.

[00:19:42] And my son, who teaches English and is also an ordained Anglican priest,

[00:19:49] he was preaching the same text I was yesterday.

[00:19:55] And I'll tell you, as a father, to have your 40-something-year-old son preaching from Mark 10.

[00:20:03] And it's interesting.

[00:20:04] I was reading his sermon in the parking lot.

[00:20:06] He emailed it to me.

[00:20:09] I was reading his sermon in the parking lot before I preached my sermon.

[00:20:13] And they're the same gospel, but really different.

[00:20:19] And all that English literature background sort of comes in.

[00:20:23] And teaching preaching, that's one thing I don't want to crush in students.

[00:20:31] I want the uniqueness of their voice to come through.

[00:20:35] They're not, you know, they're not, I'm not teaching a format to them.

[00:20:40] But it's beautiful to see that.

[00:20:44] Yeah, that's heartwarming to think of.

[00:20:47] And congratulations on that.

[00:20:49] Thank you.

[00:20:50] Yeah.

[00:20:51] Yeah.

[00:20:51] So you, that's beautiful.

[00:20:54] I love that.

[00:20:55] You talk about, you mentioned, you know, the kind of the preaching style of Jesus a few minutes ago.

[00:20:59] And I wanted to kind of pull on that thread a little bit.

[00:21:02] So a book of yours that I have read is your book on the parables.

[00:21:07] And I've been really enjoying reading through, you call it Jesus's friendly, subversive speech.

[00:21:14] So like, I quote you almost every Sunday.

[00:21:18] You have a line where you say that parables are like time bombs that only explode after they have penetrated our hearts.

[00:21:28] And how, what does that mean?

[00:21:30] I love it.

[00:21:31] But could you explain that to me and to us?

[00:21:33] How are parables like a time bomb?

[00:21:35] Can I back up a bit?

[00:21:37] And I'll tell you a story.

[00:21:39] How parabolic of you.

[00:21:41] Of course, of course.

[00:21:45] I, about an hour from school, I was asked to do four weeks on the Sermon on the Mount.

[00:21:53] And I didn't know the church very well.

[00:21:56] And, and I wasn't getting through with the Sermon on the Mount.

[00:22:01] And it seemed more like we could have been reading an op-ed piece from the Washington Post and New York Times.

[00:22:08] And people just were, I was just really frustrated.

[00:22:14] I was trying really hard to communicate the Sermon on the Mount and it wasn't working.

[00:22:17] And on the last night, I walked away and I muttered to myself out loud, this is why Jesus spoke parables.

[00:22:30] And he, he had reached, I think, a communicational impasse because the religious leaders were plotting his death.

[00:22:41] But the people were attracted to him.

[00:22:45] And so in teaching parables, he kept the people with him without explicitly offending the religious leaders.

[00:22:55] And then left it for the disciples to follow up on their time.

[00:23:02] And I think that's a definite, there's a switch.

[00:23:06] There's a definite communicational strategy change that Jesus used.

[00:23:11] He, that's why it comes, I think, when it does in Matthew.

[00:23:15] It kind of had reached a point.

[00:23:19] So, and the parables, I think, also are very effective today for communicating somewhat implicitly and indirectly.

[00:23:28] They're a challenge to preach.

[00:23:30] They're not easy to preach.

[00:23:32] Right.

[00:23:33] Because people are really familiar with them.

[00:23:37] But several things help, I think, in preaching them.

[00:23:41] One is they all have Old Testament roots.

[00:23:44] They are not on the fly stories made up by Jesus.

[00:23:50] You know, they're not free associating.

[00:23:53] They are deeply rooted in the Old Testament, most of all of them.

[00:24:00] And then second, I keep reminding myself all the time when I'm preaching the parables, Jesus is speaking here.

[00:24:09] Jesus is speaking here.

[00:24:11] And that also often helps you to find Jesus in the story.

[00:24:16] Because he's a character in that story.

[00:24:21] And that just opens up the interpretation so that you really are, you're going beyond an anecdote.

[00:24:29] You're going beyond a story.

[00:24:31] What is Jesus illustrating here with that story?

[00:24:35] And pretty frequently, it's mercy over merit.

[00:24:40] You just think in terms of that gospel truth that's coming through.

[00:24:45] And how is that like a time bomb?

[00:24:51] Cool story.

[00:24:52] But what about my question?

[00:24:55] Well, today, if you're preaching the parables and you give that Old Testament root, you give the fact that Jesus is speaking this.

[00:25:03] And then what he's really saying, I think, gets past people's defenses.

[00:25:14] And once you're past those defenses, that gospel truth can be brought out.

[00:25:19] They still remain something of, to our modern audience, an enigma that needs to be explained.

[00:25:26] So, you're looking, the sermon is a little bit like the conversation that Jesus has with the disciples off-site.

[00:25:35] And they're asking the question.

[00:25:38] And you kind of want to picture the congregation asking that question that the disciples ask.

[00:25:45] And then Jesus often gives answers to that.

[00:25:48] But, so I think it's a, yeah.

[00:25:54] Boy, I hope by phrasing there isn't just hyperbolic.

[00:25:58] I do think that it works.

[00:26:01] I mean, I've found it working.

[00:26:04] Yeah, well, I wouldn't quote it four weeks in a row if I didn't think it was, yeah, it was great.

[00:26:08] And that it comes in, you think it's one thing, and then it kind of detonates later on.

[00:26:14] Or upon thinking or upon more reflection.

[00:26:18] Now, I wonder what you think, because you mentioned earlier on that your early formative years, you were very familiar with the epistles of Paul.

[00:26:25] And that's maybe the story of many Protestants growing up with the epistles primarily.

[00:26:32] And people like them because they're clear, they're direct.

[00:26:35] It explains something explicitly clear, and then it tells you what to do with it.

[00:26:40] Now, and this isn't all of Jesus' teaching style.

[00:26:42] Sometimes Jesus is also quite plain.

[00:26:44] And in fact, he primarily is a plain speaking, plain teaching man.

[00:26:48] But what's that contrast between the clarity and then sometimes bringing in this, I don't want to say it's obfuscating because it's actually not, but this different way, this roundabout way of teaching the truth.

[00:27:01] Do you think our sermons should be more Pauline or more Nazarene?

[00:27:06] Well, that's a good question.

[00:27:09] The tension is sort of between implicit and explicit.

[00:27:12] The gospels tend to be implicit, kind of encouraging a discovery.

[00:27:18] The explicit, and when you think of Christology, the understanding of Christ,

[00:27:26] the epistles are very explicit and very high, a very high Christology.

[00:27:32] And the gospels much less so.

[00:27:36] But lately I've been spending a lot of time in the upper room, John 13 through 17.

[00:27:42] And that's a very high Christology.

[00:27:48] Put a sharper edge on your question for me.

[00:27:53] Should, I suppose, yeah, should our sermons ever include just like leaving it hang or not making things explicit or kind of just say, now go home and think about this.

[00:28:04] Or, you know, stories that illustrate without the explanatory comment.

[00:28:13] Yeah, I think in terms of my own personal preaching style, there's conclusions all the way through a sermon and not just a high point conclusion.

[00:28:24] You know, in the Hebrew mind, the conclusion came at the center.

[00:28:27] When you look at the Psalms, they tend to be, the most important thing you can look at is at the center of the Psalm because it's steep.

[00:28:35] It goes up a hill and down a hill.

[00:28:37] So, and I think that sermons ought to be, I mean, I think there's a variety of ways that we communicate.

[00:28:47] But I think that Jesus could really cut off a sermon very quickly.

[00:28:54] And I try to do that when I'm preaching Jesus's words.

[00:29:00] Paul, again, I think that reading, doing the epistles, there's a sense in which the cultural dynamic, it's got, it meets with that explicitness.

[00:29:15] And oftentimes we're not speaking into this culture with those Pauline epistles.

[00:29:21] We're just preaching flat, the Pauline epistles.

[00:29:25] But it addresses the culture, it addresses the church in very dynamic ways.

[00:29:31] So you've got to be thinking of church and culture as you preach these epistles.

[00:29:37] I think one of the underused and so important epistles is 1 Peter for our time.

[00:29:46] I just want Christians to see themselves as resident aliens, that this is not our cultural home.

[00:29:53] I want them to see the difference between the American dream and the kingdom of God.

[00:30:00] But I wish 1 Peter was preached a whole lot more right now.

[00:30:04] Yeah, I have great news for you.

[00:30:07] The latest Calvary Global Network International Leaders Conference was just, we spent a whole week looking at 1 Peter.

[00:30:13] And just those, yeah, it was a very, yeah, very powerful look at that.

[00:30:17] And I'll have a link in the description in the show notes for those that want to get in on that.

[00:30:21] But yeah, it was actually very pertinent.

[00:30:23] And people did not have to stretch or, you know, pull application out of that.

[00:30:29] But Peter has a lot to say to 21st century Christians.

[00:30:35] Now, yeah, again, and so, yeah, thanks to Kriegel for like putting this book out amongst others.

[00:30:41] That's, yeah, been very, very helpful.

[00:30:43] So you believe that people can grow as preachers.

[00:30:48] We believe that like it's a gift that God gives to people.

[00:30:52] But then also you've been spending, you know, 16 plus years, and I'm sure more beyond your vocation, trying to help preachers improve.

[00:30:59] So how do you understand the difference between being able to preach as like a gift from God and then also being like a skill that we have to put work into and cultivate?

[00:31:08] Well, a lot of the people in my classes, you know, will probably a number of them will not be formally preaching on Sunday morning.

[00:31:17] Okay.

[00:31:18] So I do have a desire just to help people communicate God's Word better, whether they're a parent, a friend, pastor, missionary, whatever.

[00:31:29] And so that's a goal I have.

[00:31:33] I don't, I probably don't assess students as well, do you have a gift or not?

[00:31:39] Okay.

[00:31:39] I believe that the Spirit of God enables them to communicate God's Word.

[00:31:46] And some are more gifted than others, I'm sure.

[00:31:50] And I can, I see my role as kind of a coach to try to draw out spiritual maturity in a way that expresses God's truth faithfully and fruitfully.

[00:32:03] And I think that can be done in just a tremendous variety of ways.

[00:32:11] So I may have, are you familiar with Regent College in Vancouver?

[00:32:16] I'm not, I'm afraid, but I wish I was.

[00:32:20] I wish I was.

[00:32:20] Well, they tend to really draw in a lot of professionals and people that will be in various disciplines, you know, from education to architecture to law to medicine.

[00:32:35] And I like that model of teaching people like that too, how to proclaim and communicate God's Word.

[00:32:44] That doesn't, you know, I think we take the form of preaching, the opportunity to preach, the purpose of preaching, all of that very seriously.

[00:32:56] Okay.

[00:32:57] And so you think that anyone or any Christian can communicate God's Word and they can all do it better.

[00:33:04] And yeah, okay.

[00:33:06] And am I, is it, am I putting words into your mouth?

[00:33:09] Like, do you believe that some people are like uniquely gifted to do so?

[00:33:13] Or do you think that anyone, anyone everywhere could?

[00:33:16] Well, okay.

[00:33:17] Speaking personally, I do think I'm gifted to preach.

[00:33:23] But I'm an introvert.

[00:33:25] Growing up, I never imagined myself being a preaching pastor.

[00:33:30] I really love studying and trying to understand God's Word.

[00:33:36] That's the driving impulse for me.

[00:33:39] I really don't get any great joy out of delivery.

[00:33:46] But I am really thankful for the responsibility I have to do that.

[00:33:53] This may be of interest, Mike.

[00:33:56] Like, I really enjoy manuscripting and processing through writing.

[00:34:02] You, I think probably a lot of people do.

[00:34:06] But then I find the struggle of having expressed it the way I want to say it in writing as interfering with the actual process of delivering that message.

[00:34:23] So I write it the way it should be read.

[00:34:27] But then I speak it the way I think it should be said.

[00:34:32] And those two are really very different.

[00:34:35] Yeah.

[00:34:36] Yeah.

[00:34:37] And so it's the self-denial of putting aside the written word, as it were.

[00:34:43] Not the word, word.

[00:34:45] But my work.

[00:34:46] Lowercase w, yeah.

[00:34:47] Yeah.

[00:34:49] In order to communicate person to person effectively with people.

[00:34:55] Yeah.

[00:34:55] And then what?

[00:34:56] To paraphrase, I think it's attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

[00:34:59] You know, like, give me the wisdom to know the difference.

[00:35:02] There's maybe some ways to communicate.

[00:35:04] Yeah.

[00:35:04] As written.

[00:35:06] And then there's ways to communicate spoken.

[00:35:08] And sometimes when I'm reading books and I can just tell that it's just like a transcribed sermon from somebody.

[00:35:17] I kind of think like, oh, come on, man.

[00:35:19] Like, don't just copy and paste this and then package it up as a book.

[00:35:25] But like, write to me.

[00:35:27] Write to me.

[00:35:27] And then there's also the other way where people can preach in such a convoluted way that it's like, okay, this isn't a research paper.

[00:35:33] So just talk to me.

[00:35:34] So there's a difference between those two things.

[00:35:36] And it sounds like you're able to find the space between them.

[00:35:40] Well, and I think years and years of writing and processing that way and manuscripting does impact your oral communication.

[00:35:49] Hopefully.

[00:35:50] And helpfully.

[00:35:51] But it doesn't take away from the eye-to-eye, face-to-face communication that we have.

[00:35:57] Yeah.

[00:35:58] Yeah.

[00:35:59] Yeah.

[00:35:59] Well, I have my kind of closing question where I always want to ask people about their next sermon.

[00:36:06] So we always start with the first sermon.

[00:36:08] And then I always want to hear about the next sermon.

[00:36:10] But I feel that I almost would be remiss if I didn't like ask you for like kind of like one final tip on preaching the parables.

[00:36:18] At the end of the book, you kind of give like 10 bits of advice on preaching the parables.

[00:36:23] And I don't want you to give out all 10 because people have to go out and buy the book themselves.

[00:36:26] But for the person that downloaded this, looking for advice on preaching the parables, like what's their kind of one takeaway that you'd give for them?

[00:36:36] Probably the most important one is to realize that Jesus spoke it.

[00:36:40] And try to find Jesus in that parable because invariably, implicitly, he's there.

[00:36:50] So, yeah, I think that's the best advice I can give.

[00:36:54] And then, you know, I believe in weekly Eucharist.

[00:37:00] So you always finish the sermon in such a way that it cannot be moralistic because you're finishing at the table.

[00:37:09] And the table, in a way, is the conclusion.

[00:37:11] I believe in text to table.

[00:37:14] The table is the conclusion of the sermon.

[00:37:17] And in doing that, it saves you from any sort of moralistic interpretation of the parable, which it should never be.

[00:37:29] And add to the fact that Jesus is speaking at the fact that invariably it's mercy over merit.

[00:37:37] And that's the thrust of the gospel.

[00:37:40] Yeah.

[00:37:41] Well, thank you.

[00:37:42] Thank you very much.

[00:37:42] That's number four on your list of 10.

[00:37:44] And if people want the rest of them, then they're going to have to go buy the book from Kriegel.

[00:37:49] Well, thank you.

[00:37:50] Thank you for that little taster, that sampler.

[00:37:53] And then now, as promised.

[00:37:54] So we've heard your first sermon.

[00:37:56] We've heard about last night.

[00:37:58] But the next time you preach, you know, like, are you trying to improve?

[00:38:02] What's something that you want to do a little bit better next time you have the pulpit?

[00:38:06] Well, it's the same thing that I'm always trying to improve.

[00:38:09] I'm trying to take the hard work of the preparation, which I thoroughly enjoy.

[00:38:15] And those hours can be spent.

[00:38:17] They don't even feel like work.

[00:38:20] But then taking that and then going just live with a congregation.

[00:38:27] So Nehemiah 8 is my next sermon that I'm working on.

[00:38:32] Lucky you.

[00:38:33] That's a good one.

[00:38:34] It is.

[00:38:34] It's really good.

[00:38:35] It was assigned to me.

[00:38:37] It's a chapel talk that's coming.

[00:38:42] And one of the things I'm going to work at, this is probably when you start, when you study the parables a lot, you begin to see that parabolic sense throughout Scripture.

[00:38:52] And I'm impressed with the fact that Ezra in Nehemiah 8, reading the law to the combined people, you know, this is years into the renewal movement in Israel.

[00:39:05] And they ask him to come and speak.

[00:39:11] It's not like he takes the initiative there.

[00:39:14] They ask him.

[00:39:15] And they build a platform.

[00:39:18] And, you know, in this social media world where our students probably feel the pressure of creating their own platform.

[00:39:26] Oh, wow.

[00:39:27] And, you know, publishers constantly ask me, well, how big's your platform?

[00:39:32] And I turn to them and I say, I don't have one.

[00:39:35] I'm not on Facebook.

[00:39:37] I'm not on Instagram.

[00:39:39] I'm not on X.

[00:39:42] You know, and maybe it's because I'm 73 that I'm not on all those things.

[00:39:46] But I've never made my own platform.

[00:39:51] The local church has made my platform.

[00:39:54] Beeson has made my platform.

[00:39:56] I've been given a platform.

[00:40:00] And so, you know, I'll encourage people to look to how the Lord is creating a platform for you that you're not creating a platform.

[00:40:11] That's just one aspect of that message.

[00:40:14] That's so good.

[00:40:15] That's so good.

[00:40:16] Thank you for that preview of that.

[00:40:18] And certainly advice.

[00:40:20] Again, the listeners to this podcast are like preachers or like aspiring preachers.

[00:40:26] And so we need to hear that.

[00:40:29] Certainly.

[00:40:29] 100%.

[00:40:30] Thank you.

[00:40:31] Well, that's about it.

[00:40:33] You know, I was going to say, hey, where can we find you?

[00:40:36] Are you on Facebook or Instagram?

[00:40:38] It turns out the answer is no.

[00:40:40] The answer is no.

[00:40:42] Not at all.

[00:40:43] In fact, you know, in our church plant, we're not even taping.

[00:40:47] Now, that's not totally my idea.

[00:40:49] But Zach Hicks, who I work with, and Jess Leslie, the two other pastors, they really don't want to grow the church by a social media presence.

[00:41:02] They want to grow it in person.

[00:41:05] And I agree with that.

[00:41:08] You know?

[00:41:08] Yeah.

[00:41:09] Yeah.

[00:41:10] That thought has crossed my mind in the past, but I haven't pulled the trigger, you know?

[00:41:14] Because, you know, we like live broadcast and, you know, and it makes it very easy for people to skip church, for church members to not come because they'll just catch it online.

[00:41:25] And to kind of make it like, well, you don't want to miss this.

[00:41:27] This only is happening in real life.

[00:41:30] And so that's kind of one aspect that I'm thinking through.

[00:41:33] But then yours is even the other, that it's not based on clicks or likes or follows, but being there in the room.

[00:41:41] Well, and, you know, I don't think that you impose that.

[00:41:44] But, and for this time, for our church plan, and maybe a limited time, that's how we're doing it.

[00:41:53] So, yeah.

[00:41:54] Well, so if somebody wants to hear you preach, where do they have to drive to?

[00:42:00] They got to come to Birmingham, Alabama.

[00:42:02] All right.

[00:42:04] All right.

[00:42:05] I'll make sure to leave an address so people can do that.

[00:42:08] Yeah.

[00:42:09] Well, yeah, Doug, I've really enjoyed this.

[00:42:11] This has been, you know, like as enjoyable as I imagined.

[00:42:15] Looking forward to this conversation.

[00:42:16] So thank you for, personally, thank you for your help with me teaching the parables.

[00:42:20] And I believe that you've probably helped other people through this conversation.

[00:42:24] Well, Mike, thanks so much.

[00:42:26] Thanks for your interest in the work that we're doing.

[00:42:29] Appreciate it.

[00:42:30] Well, yeah.

[00:42:30] Thanks so much.

[00:42:31] And to the listeners of this podcast, I hope that this conversation and all that we do at Expositors Collective

[00:42:36] helps you to grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word.

[00:42:40] Thanks again, Doug.

[00:42:43] Amen.

[00:42:43] Thank you.

[00:42:45] Well, hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end of that conversation.

[00:42:48] I really enjoyed getting to know Dr. Webster and hopefully it was beneficial for you to listen in.

[00:42:55] Make sure you check out the show notes because not only do we have the books that have been published by Kriegel Academic

[00:43:01] and also by Lexham Press by Dr. Webster.

[00:43:05] Also, there's just some links for Beeson Divinity School and then also a fellow professor, Dr. Gerald Bray.

[00:43:14] He was on this show a couple of years ago and it's one of my favorite episodes.

[00:43:19] And if you haven't been subscribed since the early days, there's a link there that you can go back and listen to a fellow Beeson prof, Dr. Gerald Bray.

[00:43:30] Well, if you're listening all the way to the end, it means that you probably like this podcast.

[00:43:34] So thanks for listening.

[00:43:36] If you want to make a contribution to pay for our editing and our hosting and also to be contributing towards our own traveling internationally

[00:43:48] for various in-person preacher training gatherings that we've been doing.

[00:43:54] Most recently, we were in Kampala, Uganda.

[00:43:57] We've also been in Novosad, Serbia, as well as throughout North America.

[00:44:03] If you want to make a contribution towards getting this type of content and training and instruction out there,

[00:44:12] well, there's also a link in our show notes for our Calvary Global Network giving page.

[00:44:16] So you can follow that link and then scroll down.

[00:44:19] And if it's a small once-off or if it's a large standing or anything in between, those donations will be appreciated.

[00:44:28] And thank you so much for considering us as you're thinking through your charitable giving as we come to the end of 2024.

[00:44:38] Well, next week, there's a new episode coming out on Tuesday morning.

[00:44:41] And I hope that this helps you grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word.